Who Is LulzSec?

We've scoured the Internet to profile core members and associates of the hacktivist group that made headlines for 50 madcap days of hacking, leaking, and lulz.

LulzSec made headlines all over the world with its 50-day spree of hacking, leaking, DDoSing, website defacing, and yes, lots of lulz. We've analyzed the meaning of the hacktivist group's reign of cyber-mayhem, as well as LulzSec's methods.

Now let's look at what we know about the identities of LulzSec's members and their roles in the group.

None of the individuals that LulzSec itself has identified as its core group of six main membersSabu, Topiary, Kayla, T-Flow, Avanit, and Pwnsaucehas been arrested by authorities as of this week. Given LulzSec's penchant for trickery, it's always possible that some of those handles don't even represent distinct individuals.

But we can get an idea about who those Lulz Boat-steering pranksters are through various media reports and "doxes" published by LulzSec's rivals in the hacktivist underground, as well as leaked Internet Relay Chat (IRC) logs published and analyzed by the Guardian.

One thing we won't do is publish the supposed real-life names of the LulzSec members and associates we're profiling here. It's easy enough to find documentation around the Internet that purportedly outs various LulzSec players, if one chooses to look.

Instead, we're interested in connecting the various dots to paint a picture of how this tight-knit group of hacktivists coalesced out of the AnonOps hacking wing of Anonymous and its loose affiliate gn0sis, leaning heavily on the Guardian's deep-diving legwork, but also on LulzSec's own leaked admissions and the work of dedicated LulzSec outers like Backtrace Security, Team Web Ninjas, and lone-wolf LulzSec-stalker the Jester.

The LulzSec story as told by the Internet is a convoluted one, with bits of information that contradict others. This is by no means a finished story. But maybe endings are overrated in the long run. Read ahead for the whole fascinating, if open-ended tale.

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The Botnet Operator

The Botnet Operator

Kayla: Could be a 16-year-old girl, a 30-year-old New Jersey-based hacker, or anything in between, going by reports and "doxes" published by LulzSec rivals. What we do know is that Kayla (also known as Lol in leaked IRC logs) possesses a massive, powerful botnet of perhaps 8,000 infected serversthe equivalent of 25 million PCs, according to security firm Imperva. Naturally, this LulzSec co-founder led LulzSec’s DDoS-attack site takedowns. Reportedly a key figure in the HBGary Federal hack, associated with both AnonOps and Gn0sis.